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Cambridge International Examinations
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level
9389/31
HISTORY
Paper 3 Interpretations Question
May/June 2015
1 hour
Additional Materials:
Answer Booklet/Paper
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This paper contains three sections:
Section A: Topic 1 The Causes and Impact of British Imperialism, c. 1850–1939
Section B: Topic 2 The Holocaust
Section C: Topic 3 The Origins and Development of the Cold War, 1941–50
Answer the question on the topic you have studied.
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The marks are given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question.
This document consists of 4 printed pages.
DC (LEG) 96493/2
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[Turn over
2
Section A: Topic 1
The Causes and Impact of British Imperialism, c.1850–1939
1
Read the extract and then answer the question.
Imperialism is the natural product of the economic pressure of a sudden advance of capitalism
which cannot find occupation at home and needs foreign markets for goods and for investments.
These needs exist in European countries, and, as is admitted, drive governments along. Overproduction in the sense of an excessive manufacturing plant, and surplus capital which cannot find
sound investments within the country, force Great Britain, Germany, Holland and France to place
larger and larger portions of their economic resources outside the area of their present political
domain, and then stimulate a policy of political expansion so as to take in the new areas. The
economic sources of this movement are laid bare by periodic trade-depressions due to an inability
of producers to find adequate and profitable markets for what they can produce. The Majority
Report of the Commission upon the Depression of Trade in 1885 stated the issue clearly: ‘That,
owing to the nature of the times, the demand for our commodities does not increase at the same
rate as formerly; that our capacity for production is consequently in excess of our requirements,
and could be considerably increased at short notice; that this is due partly to the competition of the
capital which is being steadily accumulated in the country.’ The Minority Report straightly blames
the condition of affairs on ‘over-production’. Germany is at the present time suffering severely
from what is called a glut of capital and of manufacturing power: she must have new markets; her
diplomats all over the world are ‘hustling’ for trade; trading settlements are forced upon Asia Minor;
in East and West Africa, in China and elsewhere, the German Empire is impelled to a policy of
colonisation and protectorates as outlets for German commercial energy.
Every improvement of methods of production, every concentration of ownership and control,
seems to accentuate the tendency. As one nation after another enters the machine economy and
adopts advanced industrial methods, it becomes more difficult for its manufacturers, merchants
and financiers to dispose profitably of their economic resources, and they are tempted more and
more to use their governments in order to secure for their particular use some distant undeveloped
country by annexation and protection.
The process we may be told is inevitable, and so it seems upon a superficial inspection. Everywhere
appear excessive powers of production, excessive capital in search of investment. It is admitted by
all business men that the growth of the powers of production in their country exceeds the growth in
consumption, that more goods can be produced than can be sold at a profit, and that more capital
exists than can find remunerative investment.
It is this economic condition of affairs that forms the taproot of Imperialism. If the consuming
public in this country raised its standard of consumption to keep pace with every rise of productive
powers, there could be no excess of goods or capital demanding to use Imperialism in order to
find markets: foreign trade would indeed exist, but there would be no difficulty in exchanging a
small surplus of our manufactures for the food and raw material we annually absorbed, and all the
savings that we made could find employment, if we chose, in home industries.
What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who
wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the British Empire to explain your answer.
[40]
© UCLES 2015
9389/31/M/J/15
3
Section B: Topic 2
The Holocaust
2
Read the extract and then answer the question.
After 1939, in the parts of Poland annexed by Germany and incorporated into the Reich, the
constraints on inhumanity to the Polish population, and of course to the Jewish minority in Poland,
disappeared completely. This was prompted by Hitler’s exhortation to brutal methods in a ‘racial
struggle’ which was not to be confined by legal considerations. Hitler needed to do nothing to
force the pace of the rapidly escalating barbarism. He could leave it to the men on the spot.
Characteristically, he said he asked no more of his gauleiters in the East than that after ten years
they should be able to announce that their territories were completely German. The invitation was
in itself sufficient to spark a competition in brutality between the arch-rival provincial chieftains
Albert Forster in West Prussia and Arthur Greiser in the Warthegau to be able to report to the
Führer in the shortest time that the ‘racial struggle’ had been won, that complete Germanisation
had been achieved.
The licence which Hitler as ‘enabler’ offered to such party bosses in the East can be illustrated
graphically through the ‘initiative’ taken by Greiser in May 1942 recommending the liquidation of
35,000 non-Jewish Poles suffering from incurable tuberculosis. In the event, Greiser’s suggestion
encountered difficulties. Objections were raised that it would be hard to maintain secrecy –
reference was made here to the impact of the earlier ‘euthanasia programme’ in Germany itself
– and was likely, therefore, to arouse unrest among the Polish population as well as presenting
foreign propaganda with a gift. The objectors suggested that Hitler himself be consulted if the
‘action’ were to go ahead. Greiser’s enlightening response ran: ‘I myself do not believe that the
Führer needs to be asked again in this matter, especially since at our last discussion with regard
to the Jews he told me that I could proceed with these according to my own judgement.’ Greiser
had already, in fact, recommended to Himmler the ‘special treatment’ (that is, killing) of 100,000
Jews in the Warthegau – the start of the ‘final solution’ there.
Time after time, Hitler set the barbaric tone, whether in hate-filled public speeches giving a green
light to discriminatory action against Jews and other ‘enemies of the state’, or in closed addresses
to Nazi functionaries or military leaders where he laid down, for example, the brutal guidelines
for the occupation of Poland and for ‘Operation Barbarossa’. But there was never any shortage of
willing helpers, far from being confined to party activists, ready to ‘work towards the Führer’ to put
the mandate into operation. Once the war – intrinsic to Nazism and Hitler’s ‘vision’ – had begun, the
barbarism inspired by that ‘vision’, now unchecked by any remnants of legal constraint or concern
for public sensitivities, plumbed unimaginable depths. But there was no prospect, nor could there
have been, of the ‘New Order’ settling into a ‘system’ of government. Competing Nazi chieftains,
not structured governments, formed the grim face of Nazi rule in the occupied territories. The
rapaciousness and destructiveness present from the start within Germany now became hugely
magnified and intensified, with the conquered peoples, rather than the Germans themselves, as
the main victims.
What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who
wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Holocaust to explain your answer.
[40]
© UCLES 2015
9389/31/M/J/15
[Turn over
4
Section C: Topic 3
The Origins and Development of the Cold War, 1941–1950
3
Read the extract and then answer the question.
Although at Yalta Stalin had approved the idea of consultation between the Soviet and Allied
military staffs, this had not led to easy contact. The Soviet military authorities continued to be
slow in responding to requests or suggestions of co-operation, and when they did it was usually
to evade or refuse. Stalin and his service chiefs seemed content with the general knowledge of
campaign plans given and gotten at Yalta; to have the battle roll on in the East and West without
more talk or ado.
Although victory was thus growing near, agreement on many important elements and aspects of
the future of Europe was not: the treatment of Germany; occupation zones in Austria; the nature of
the government of Poland and its future frontiers; the share to be accorded the United States and
Great Britain in the control of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Negotiations over some of these
questions were becoming set and shrill. The tide of trust that had flowed at Yalta was ebbing fast.
Stalin was giving way to suspicion of the American-British conduct of the war and to resentment
at their attempts to maintain influence in any region near Soviet frontiers. To the Western allies it
seemed that the Russians were becoming indifferent to their wartime promises.
The American and British governments admitted that the Soviet determination to prevent hostile
elements in the countries near its frontiers from gaining control was not without fair reason. Such
precaution, within balanced measure, could be justified by the need to protect Soviet occupation
forces. The American and British authorities were similarly keeping an alert watch over political
developments in the liberated areas of the West – Italy, Greece, France and Belgium. But within
the large area of remaining political choice, the American and British governments hoped that the
Soviet government would be as willing as they were to respect the right of other peoples to choose
the government under which they would live – as proclaimed in the Atlantic Charter and reaffirmed
in the Declaration on Liberated Europe. This was an offshoot of the conception that the three great
allies were to remain closely joined, and without fear of one another.
But Soviet actions showed an unwillingness to trust the outcome of the democratic political
contest, and a ruthless will to make sure that all of Central and Eastern Europe was governed
by its dependent supporters. This set purpose was not affected by cooperation in combat or by
appeals to principle. The Soviet Union wanted space, satellite peoples and armies, additional
economic resources, and a favourable chance for Communism to spread its influence. The
American government was disturbed by the signs of these intentions and by the spirit of mistrust
behind them. The British government, with its longer memory of the struggles in Europe, was
less surprised but even more disturbed. Churchill, who had spoken as though he thought the
Yalta Accords ended the need for anxiety, began now to experience ‘deep despond’, all the more
so since he was failing to get the American government to realise, in his own words, that ‘Soviet
Russia had become a mortal danger to the free world’, and thus the need for creating at once a
new military front against its onward sweep. Such was the blight that fell upon the coalition just as,
at long last, the evil that Hitler had summoned up was being destroyed.
What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who
wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Cold War to explain your answer.
[40]
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© UCLES 2015
9389/31/M/J/15